


Why Peeta Doesn't Use Pet Names

by lesbianophelia



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Oneshot, marriage instead of quarter quell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:43:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2134140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianophelia/pseuds/lesbianophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t hard to tell if a moment is for them or for their audience in the Capitol. At first, it was difficult, but she picked up on his tell in the week that led up to their wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Peeta Doesn't Use Pet Names

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SoThere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoThere/gifts).



**001:**   
  
It isn’t hard to tell if a moment is for them or for their audience in the Capitol. At first, it was difficult, but she picked up on his tell in the week that led up to their wedding.

“Oh, baby,” he had said at one of their many parties. “You look amazing tonight.”   
  
Baby. She laughed politely and hoped that it wasn’t obvious just how strange the endearment sounded.   
  
That night, when he slid into bed beside her, he had sighed deeply, like he was every bit as exhausted as she was, buried his face in her hair, and murmured _goodnight Katniss._  
  
  
 **002:**   
The only thing he calls her in District Twelve is Katniss. Plain, simple, and somehow ten times better sounding in his voice.   
  
When they’re joking, he calls her Katniss. When they’re kissing, he calls her Katniss. Sometimes, when he’s talking to Prim and he thinks she won’t hear, he refers to her as your sister. But that’s the closest he comes to calling her anything else.   
  
**003:**   
“Darling!” he says when she comes out of hair and makeup. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”   
  
“You know Cinna,” she returned, giving him a tiny little smile. “He’ll work until the very last minute if you give him a chance.”   
  
“I’ll have to remember to thank him,” Peeta said in a mock whisper, addressing not Katniss but the man he had been talking to earlier. “You look stunning tonight, my dear.”   
  
That night, she changed into her pajamas and scrubbed her face clean as soon as they got into their room, and he had smiled when he saw her.   
  
“Hey,” he said, his voice sounding not half as deep as it has been while they’ve been pandering to their audience. “You look nice.”   
  
She rolled her eyes at him. “You say that no matter what I wear.”   
  
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You look nice. Tonight. Like that. You look . . .”   
  
“I look?” she supplied, waiting for him to finish.   
  
“You look like Katniss,” he said. She wondered if she put a different face forward, too.   
  
**004:**   
It slips out while he’s trying to comfort her after a particularly bad nightmare. At home. In their bed in his house in the Victor’s Village.   
  
“Katniss, Katniss, honey, look at me,” he says, and even though she had just been crying into his shoulder, she jerks away from him like he’s on fire. “What is it?” he whispers. “What’s wrong?”   
  
“You can’t call me that,” she says, her voice far too harsh. “Not here.”   
  
He frowns, but the lines on his face smooth out a little bit when he realizes his mistake. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I won’t say it again. I just . . . I don’t know, Katniss. This is getting harder and harder.”   
  
She agrees, and when she starts to cry again, it’s for completely different reasons.

 **  
**005:  
After the war, he never calls her anything except for Katniss and, eventually, he refers to her as mama in a desperate attempt to have at least one of their kids pick that for their first word.


End file.
